I. Field of the Disclosure
The technology of the disclosure relates generally to operations within computer processors for selecting rows within indexed address spaces.
II. Background
Many operations carried out by conventional computer processors and their constituent subsystems involve the selection of multiple rows in an indexed address space. For instance, such conventional computer processors may include indexed arrays, made up of indexed array rows arranged in a logical sequence, for use in operations such as tracking register assignments, issued instructions, and/or committed instructions, as non-limiting examples. In particular, some operations may require the simultaneous selection of an arbitrary, logically contiguous range of indexed array rows from an indexed array or other indexed address space within a single processor clock cycle. The row selection may comprise none of the indexed array rows, all of the indexed array rows, or any logically contiguous subset of the indexed array rows. As an additional complication, in some aspects, consecutive row selections may be independent of each other, such that a particular row selection may have no relation to previous or subsequent row selections.
In conventional computer processors, providing such arbitrary row selection within an indexed address space may require a significant number of calculations and comparisons. Because each row selection is independent of previous or subsequent row selections, it may not be feasible to perform cumulative tracking of logical address selections to determine a next row selection. Moreover, a given row selection within an indexed address space may require comparison of a logical address of every indexed array row within the indexed address space with a desired row selection to determine whether each indexed array row falls within the desired row selection. Mechanisms for carrying out such comparisons may prove to be prohibitively expensive in terms of processor performance, chip area, and power consumption.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a mechanism for efficiently selecting an arbitrary and potentially large number of rows within an indexed address space.